It's not Broadchurch, as much as it wanted to be

myoscar1987

I'm sure they thought that bringing David Tennant on board would win everyone over that this would be their golden ticket to this shows' success since he was a huge part of what made the British series, Broadchurch, as successful as it was. But even he couldn't save this Americanized version.

It's like I hear all the time, the British know drama. And there's many reasons as to why this American remake did not make it past a first season.

1: It's almost the EXACT same story as Broadchurch almost scene for scene, therefore too predictable to many audiences and not enough suspense. They didn't take the time to create something a little more different something of their own aside from spinning just one big twist.

2: America likes a longer drawn out series, something this story was not meant to be. With Britain it's the opposite they're usually more fond of the mini-series, these tend to outweigh their longer series and this is the perfect story to keep in suspense just long enough and bring to a sensible close before you lose interest. Broadchurch amazingly lasted three seasons and the creators never intended to go any further than that. This version looks like it was half-assed to bring in just enough of a continuing audience only to want to know what will happen as long as there was one foot in the door, maybe they could continue it for who knows how long.

3. It was doomed from the start, taking everything from a story that was recently already done and then add a cast (aside from Tennant) who just seemed bland, unfocused and undedicated to their roles, at least compared to the cast of the original series.

4. Tennant was their best hope to keeping this alive and while he did do great with what he had to work with, I could still see a little lacking in the performance. He juggled this with all his other projects (including Broadchurch which they were still working on at the time) and also struggled with his American accent. I'm going on record saying I admire and always enjoy watching Tennant's work as an actor. I think he's brilliant, talented, hard-working and motivated. However, I can still admit that his attempt at an American accent, especially here, has been his Achilles heel and it was distracting.

I give it 4/10 stars because I give them credit for trying and for convincing Tennant that an American remake had potential, enough to get him to sign on and give it a shot. As far as crime-dramas go it's not the worst out there, but it was never going to go the distance.

score 4/10

myoscar1987 23 November 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5276156/